Heritage
by TDWidow
Summary: It began with a daughter who lost her parents. It ended with a father who lost his son. Decades between only bring sorrow to the Gale family. The last one reflects on his history, wondering what will end it. begins with The Wizard of Oz *COMPLETE*
1. Beginnings

**~AUTHOR'S NOTE~** This is my newest fic! I'm not sure how I got the idea, but one day I realized this odd connection I could make. The story starts with _The Wizard of Oz_ and ends with a different film, but I don't want to let you in on what just yet. Since characters from the two movies don't technically interact, I'm not really calling this a crossover. But it might be…who knows? This is my second _Wizard of Oz_ story, the first of which can be read on FictionPress.net.

**~DISCLAIMER~** I don't own _The Wizard of Oz_. End of story!

**Beginnings**

Screams echoed through the white austere hallway. A doctor in a white lab coat met a young nurse outside the nearest hospital room. She handed him a file.

"Patient: Dorothy Gale," he read. "Twenty eight years old. Children, one son: Joseph." He turned to the nurse. "Husband?"

"No Doctor."

"I see," he murmured. He pushed open the door to Dorothy's room.

A very frightened woman lay trembling in the hospital bed. She had stopped screaming and her dark hair clung damply to the side of her face. She looked furtively at the doctor. "Will you keep her away?"

The doctor smiled warmly. "Hello Dorothy."

"She's dead," Dorothy muttered. "I killed her and she's dead. But she's not really dead! She's coming back…she's coming back and she's after me! She's mad because I killed her!" Her eyes started darting back and forth around the room and she tightened the blanket around her.

"Now Dorothy," the doctor soothed. He walked over to sit on the bed. "No one's going to hurt you."

She glanced at him. "You won't let them?"

He smiled and took her hand. "Of course not."

Dorothy nodded nervously. "The Wizard will be here soon." She smiled. "He'll know what to do."

The doctor nodded to the nurse, who quietly left the room. "Now Dorothy," he said gently. "You didn't really kill anyone. No one wants to harm you."

Dorothy's eyes locked onto the doctor. "But I did! I did kill her! It was an accident, but my fault all the same. She melted away. But the Wizard, he was proud of me! 'Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West!' he said. And I did! Now she's back. He'll help me." Dorothy sank back into her pillow. "He'll help me," she muttered.

The doctor sighed. She was far beyond his help. Getting up from the bed, he joined the nurse in the hall. "They've been called, doctor."

"Very good."

They came within the hour. A white van pulled up to the hospital. The doctor showed the men to Dorothy's room.

"Dorothy?" She looked up at the sound of the doctor's voice. "I have some people I'd like you to meet."

"Who are they?"

Three men in green scrubs entered the room. "Good afternoon, Miss Gale," one said.

Dorothy's face glowed with relief. "You've come to take me back to the Emerald City! The Wizard's finally come to help!"

The three men exchanged looks. "Yes Dorothy," one finally answered. "You can come with us back to the city."

Dorothy placidly allowed the nurse to help her dress and collect her things. She grinned as the men in green led her through the halls of the hospital.

"Mama?"

She stopped to look at a small boy, no more than four, looking at her from the arms of a hospital volunteer.

"The Wizard needs me," was all she said. Then, turning to the doctor, she said in an eerie calm, "Protect him. The Witch already got Toto, don't let her get my son, too!"

The doctor and four-year-old Joseph Gale both watched with tear-filled eyes as Dorothy Gale complacently boarded the van. It was the last either ever saw of her as the vehicle drove off, the words _Kansas City Asylum_ barely a blur on the side.


	2. Intermission

**~DISCLAIMER~** Joseph and Elizabeth are my own characters. Dorothy is the property of whoever owns _The Wizard of Oz_ and David is the property of…well, not me. You'll find out who he is in the next chapter if you don't know already.

**Intermission**

"Mommy?"

Elizabeth Gale looked up to see her 6-year-old son standing in her bedroom doorway. Fighting down a sob, she answered, "What, sweetheart?"

The child sleepily rubbed his eyes. "Why was Daddy walking around outside my window?"

Elizabeth fought to control her emotions. "It's nothing, Davie. Go back to sleep." She forced a smile.

"Okay." David turned to go back to his room. "Mommy, I love you," he added.

His words ripped through Elizabeth's heart like a knife. "I love you, too, David." She hated lying to her son, but there was nothing else to say to a 6-year-old.

"Captain Joseph Gale, reporting for duty." Elizabeth looked frightenedly at her husband suddenly standing in the doorway. He snapped into a salute. "The premises are secure."

"O-ok."

Joseph seemed to relax and left for the bathroom down the hall. His temper seemed more mellow than usual, which put Elizabeth more at ease.

She had to stop crying before he came back. But interaction with David was more painful by the day. Since she'd realized that Joseph would never return to how he was before he'd gone away, Elizabeth's heart had dried of all real love. Looking at David only reminded her of the love she and Joseph had once shared. That made it impossible to feel anything for the child but sorrow.

Joseph returned from the bathroom. Glancing at his wife, he silently stripped down to an undershirt and boxers. Stoically, formally, he settled himself into bed.

"Good night, Captain," Elizabeth said timidly. Joseph nodded stiffly before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

She lay still, unable to sleep. She was tired. Not tired in the sense of sleep, but tired of things. Of people. Of _life_.

She was tired of her loveless marriage. She was tired of walking on eggshells to protect herself from Joseph's unpredictable illness. She was tired of having to say "Good night, Captain" every night for fear of violence. She was tired of feeling no love for her child.

It was all too much for her to handle. All she could do was wonder when it would end.

**3 YEARS LATER**

A bitter wind swept between granite markers. Gray stones melted into a gray sky that threatened rain at any moment: miserable icy rain. The graveyard was largely empty, save two figures cloaked against the biting gusts.

David was nine the year he first looked at that headstone. The words etched in the granite seemed so final. He'd gone to the funeral, but it hadn't been real. No one could be in that casket when they buried it.

Certainly not his father.

Elizabeth stood next to her son, staring at "Joseph Henry Gale" chiseled into hard stone. The world could fool themselves as much as they liked – she knew the truth.

They said he must have fallen. His body washed up downriver where the banks were mossy and shallow but autopsies showed that he'd fallen far into the water.

He'd always loved to climb. The rocky banks of the river were some of his favorite climbing sites. He knew those rocks. He was not some amateur who would accidentally get himself into dangerous situations and fall.  He knew exactly what he was doing.

They'd warned her when Joseph was diagnosed that suicide was a danger. She didn't believe them because she hadn't wanted to believe them. Her husband would never do that!

She couldn't deal with anything right now. Her sister would arrive soon. She was taking David to spend some time on her cattle ranch in Texas. Elizabeth couldn't deal with her son anymore.

David looked up at his mother. He wondered what she was thinking. When she looked down at him, he smiled.

She turned around and walked away.


	3. An Ending

**AUTHOR'S NOTE** Last chapter! The anonymous reviewer was right, this is David Gale from _The Life of David Gale_. Thanks for reading, everyone!

**DISCLAIMER** I don't own _The Wizard of Oz_ or _The Life of David Gale_, but I do own the idea that the characters are related.

**An Ending**

"I'm sorrier than you can know."

Professor David Gale lay back on his cot, letting the San Francisco postcard fall softly to the concrete floor of his cell. "Thanks Berlin," he whispered bitterly. "You're only a few years too late."

Berlin was his past. Prison was his present and death was his future. There was no escaping it. Lying on his cot in the small prison cell, he was privy to long periods of contemplation. It didn't take much to spark such inner diatribes, as David had not abandoned philosophy when the University abandoned him.

A year. It had been a year since his conviction. A year spent in prison for the death of his last confidant and friend. He could remember his sentence hearing. It didn't come as a surprise to be put on Death Row. Rather he regarded it as solely ironic.

"Heh." David laughed. "So long Death Watch."

Death Watch. So long had he devoted his energy to his anti-Capitol Punishment organization. He'd put his life into it and now it couldn't save him. Ironic.

He loved irony.

Leaving the postcard forgotten on the floor, David got up from the cot and walked the few paces to a barred, gritty window. Past the shadow of the hulking brick prison, Texas sun shone glaringly on yellow plains. His eyes dropped to a framed photograph sitting on the slim window ledge. A young boy with his forehead against David's.

His son Jamie.

Tears welled up in the man's eyes as he held the frame. When he'd lost Jamie, he'd lost everything. The picture was all he had left. It was the one mercy bestowed on him to be able to keep it with him, even in prison.

Slowly, David slid off the back of the frame as he returned to the rock-hard cot. Two other photographs, one in normal condition, the other yellowed with age, fluttered out of their hiding place behind Jamie.

He picked them up and studied them, one at a time. The first one was of a young boy from the 60's, standing between a happy-looking couple. He remembered that picture being taken.

It was shortly before his father had left for war in a small Hell called Vietnam. David remembered after the war, too. After his father had been driven mad by the horrors he'd seen and could no longer interact with anyone.

They called it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But all David knew was that his father was taken away from him. His mother lost her will for anything after his father died and sent David away.

The second picture showed happiness, also. A young girl in a pretty dress smiled at the camera. She held a small black dog that stood out against her white pinafore. She was a farm girl, that much was clear.

She was Grandmother Dorothy, his father's mother. David knew little about her. He knew that she was an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle. He also knew that soon after his father was born illegitimately, Dorothy had lost her mind and had to be put in confinement. She lost her son, her sanity, and her dignity into a world of mental torment.

David slipped the pictures back into their hiding lace, again turning to the picture of Jamie. He laughed softly. Everything in his life was ironic.

Dorothy had grown up an orphan. She'd been raised by her aunt and uncle. Bu then she'd gone mad and lost her son. He hadn't grown up with parents either. When he finally started a family, he was destroyed by horrors beyond his control. In consequence, David had grown up without a father and, to some extent, a mother.

Now Jamie was suffering the same thing. Beginning with Dorothy and her illegitimate son, the Gale name seemed doomed to broken families. David just stared at the happy image of him and his son – the only person who really mattered to him.

Then mechanically, almost unconsciously, he reached down to the floor and picked up the postcard. He slid it into the frame, another piece of his past hidden from prying eyes. Even from his own prying eyes.

"I'm sorry Jamie," he whispered to the picture. "I'm sorry for everything. But you're free now." A single tear slid down his cheek. "Your daddy's gonna die…but you have a new life now. With – " His voice caught. "With a new daddy." He couldn't stop the sobs rising in his chest. "I hope he gives you a better life than I could!"

When his weeping had ebbed, he replaced the picture back on the windowsill and lay down to sleep away his sorrow. He fell into nothing – the abyss of slumber of a man living out such a nightmare that he has nothing left to dream.

Only one thought gave him solace. His life was forfeit, but at least the cycle of his family was broken. Jamie was no longer his son. No longer a Gale.

And that meant he'd be safe. Forever.


End file.
